[Video] Ligia Teixeira & Ivan Franco: Strings Of Thought #2

A woman sits on a chair and from her head several strings emerge to form a network structure like dendritic trees of neurons. These cells generate electric signals based on potential voltage and the reaction to outside stimuli. Strings of Thought #2 is an interactive installation that invites the audience to explore and play with a musical meta-instrument and collaboratively create an intricate soundscape.

Strings of Thought #2 is an hybrid art piece of music, performance and installation, that depicts the process of human mental activity and its decomposition into the simpler synaptic events of the brain.

The audience enters a room to find a woman sitting on a chair. From her hair several strings protrude, which in turn are attached to piezoelectric sensors. The plucking of the strings generates voltage spikes on the sensor array that sends these electrical pulses to the computer, while a program written in Supercollider reinterprets this data and shapes it into sonic structures. This process very clearly resembles its biological counterpart, which happens at the neural level.

The result is a peek into the soul of this lady character, as the audience is invited to play the instrument and create a soundscape composed of music and also the inner voices of this woman’s reasoning.

Through the digital aesthetic the artists Ivan Franco and Lígia Teixeira explore the electronic recreation of the process of neural transmission in the brain and how this biological process evolves into the complexity of consciousness.

IVAN FRANCO explores the intersections between art, technology and science. His multidisciplinary approach led him to work in different fields like Geographical Information Systems, Virtual Reality, Electronic Music, Digital Art and Human-Computer Interaction.
His work focuses on the development of new interfaces and devices for interactive music, installation and performance. Through the years he’s also collaborated with several artists such as Konic Thtr, Su-studio, Bert Bongers, Carlos Zíngaro, Rui Horta, Marko Brajovic or Pedro Carneiro.

LÍGIA TEIXEIRA holds a BA in Dance, specializing in Performance, from Escola Superior de Dança (PT) and is currently a 2013 MFA candidate in Performance and Interactive Media Arts at CUNY Brooklyn College (NY), with a full scholarship from Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and FLAD (Luso American Foundation). During the last 7 years she has been developing work in the intersection between dance and technology, with a particular focus on physical computing applied to dance. She is a founding member and co-artistic director of Milliways.

Founded as a not-for-profit organization by artists in 1977, Harvestworks has helped a generation of artists create new works using technology. Our mission is to support the creation and presentation of art works achieved through the use of new and evolving technologies.

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ABOUT HARVESTWORKS

Harvestworks’ mission is to present experimental artworks created in collaboration with our Technology, Engineering, Art and Music (TEAM) Lab. The Harvestworks T.E.A.M Lab supports the creation of art works achieved through the use of new and evolving technologies and provides an environment for experimentation with project consultants, technicians, instructors and innovative practitioners in all branches of the electronic arts. Our programs are made possible with funds from New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, the National Endowment for the Arts, the NYC Dept. of Cultural Affairs, Aaron Copland Fund for Music, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, New Music USA’s NYC New Music Impact Fund made possible by the Scherman Foundation’s Katharine S and Axel G Rosin Fund, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Materials for the Arts, Jerome Foundation, the Edwards Foundation Arts Fund, Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Friends of Harvestworks.